Mario’s words neither careless nor dishonest

If a community that numbers less than one-half of one percent of our population is sufficiently powerful to “summon” the members of a sitting (PNM) government to one of its members’ home for pre-election meetings, as the press reported that the Sabga family had done prior to the 2010 general election, then that family does indeed wield significant power.

When they tell the PNM to “jump,” the party’s leadership, it seems, simply has to ask “how high?” Mario’s words, therefore, are by no means “careless.” They convey in a factually truthful manner this country’s existing political reality.

If he is “guilty” of anything, it is his candour. What he deems to be “careless words” encapsulate our current social, economic and political reality.

While some may see them as “tactless words” they are neither “careless” nor are they dishonest words.

The other reality on which his dinner guest touched is the attrition of the middle class in Trinidad.

This is also an indisputable fact. So what is all the hullabaloo about? Evolution of “structure” within the political, social and economic ordering of a society is not a chance occurrence.

That a minuscule minority today controls the commanding heights of our present global economy has not happened by accident. It has been an insidious ongoing project that had its seeds planted at Bretton Woods and has been in the process of inexorable execution since then.

The single most powerful facilitating agency has been a global realpolitik that has shaped the political and economic order in a zero sum game that transfers more and more wealth to the rich while simultaneously dispossessing the poor.

One or two countries have produced conscious leaders who had the moral courage to raise their voices against this injustice. They and the countries they led have been swallowed by the capitalist leviathan that is fuelled by individual greed.

Who or what are the objects of our wrath? What has served to ignite our sense of outrage? What was the purpose of Ian Smart’s protest? To whom has he directed his disgust? Why did he choose to protest in front of one of the businesses owned by the Syrian community? Could any numerical minority group anywhere advance itself to the very pinnacle of the economy in which it exists in the absence of a paternalistic facilitator? Frenetic and mutual back-scratching must be the order of the day. So what, does Smart not know this? If two groups are scratching each other’s back, why single one out as the object of scorn? The people of this country are too nice yes. They have determined that they will not allow their “jammin’” to be interrupted by the inconvenience of truth.

STEVE SMITH via email